After submitting a document or image to a printer, a user may want to preview the document or image before the actual printing process begins. A developer of printer firmware and image-processing software typically modifies the software code of the printer to export images from various stages in the image processing pipeline into data files that are transferred to a PC running some kind of viewer application. At this point, a user may pan and zoom to inspect the details of the image using a mouse. In addition to requiring a computer and an additional viewing program, the user views the document on a screen, which is an artificial environment compared to a physically printed document. Thus, what is needed is a way of previewing in real time, an image sent to a printer as it will be seen in a real physical space.